Ukraine President Orders Disarming of Far-Right Factions

After a weekend of fighting in the Western Ukrainian town of Mukacheva, President Petro Poroshenko ordered the nation’s security services and police to organize a disarmament of various far-right “illegal groups,” saying they would not be allowed to destabilize the country.

Poroshenko in particular took aim at the neo-Nazi Right Sector, saying he didn’t believe any political faction in Ukraine should have its own armed “criminal cells.” The Ukrainian government has long relied on the Right Sector for support since the ouster of the pro-Russian government, but seems to be splitting with them in recent months.

The Right Sector has ruled out disarming, insisting it needs its weaponry to defend the country against Russia. The group is harshly anti-Russian, and had previously been sending its fighters to the east to fight secessionists. The ceasefire is among the grievances of the Right Sector, which insists any peace with ethnic Russians is “unconstitutional.”

12 thoughts on “Ukraine President Orders Disarming of Far-Right Factions”

In Central America the same strategy was often employed. The various governments would attempt to distance themselves from right wing assassins and death squads in order to continue to secure U.S. aid.

In this instance, Poroshenko is correct. I don't think he understands how difficult that is going to be to accomplish, though. Perhaps he now has a contingent of American "advisors and trainers" surrounding him, providing protection, er… I mean training.

This suggests the Ukrainian government now feels strong enough to assert ikts authority over extremist groups. The message is, I think, "defend Ukraine against Putin's mercenaries or disarm". What will probably happen is that more militiamen will be sent eastward and in return, the government will not look too closely at the smuggling, which actually benefits the Ukrainian economy.

It's quite possible that at the same time a memo was sent to the same far-right factions to ignore that first memo. Yes, it does sound more like a foreign requirement to be implemented, only in the books. This would be completely in the spirit of how things were being run in Ukraine for a rather long time now.

Symbolism only with no possible substance now that the US media are beginning at long last to point out the usnavoury nature of the West Uke shock troops. It's needed to facilitate US govt training and weaponry to restart the war – and yes the Nazis will still be there in the front line.

The US govt will just bribe both sides to make peace. Letting them fight in the open would discredit the US operation, so they'll throw money at the problem to make it go away. The same thing they did with the Bosnian Croats and the Bosnian Muslims when they started fighting each other in earnest.